Many of the first generation of neocons were Jewish and found themselves alienated by the New Left’s sympathy for the Palestinian struggle and for Third World causes more broadly. Yet the Jewish experience does not automatically translate into a hard-right Likud-style politics. As Richard Seymour observes, “It is clearly the case that, for many Jewish neoconservatives, their Jewish identity mattered; but there are surely a variety of ways of experiencing life as a Jewish immigrant in the United States, and many more ways of relating to that experience.”

XREF: Connects to broader literature on how identity shapes but does not determine political alignment, relevant to discussions of Jewish politics and the New Left/neoconservative split.

Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 386